Friday, 14 October 2011

A Guide to Uruks {T&T}

No doubt Ken St Andre had in mind Tolkien's Uruk-Hai when he came up with the Uruk race. Having similar features and origin, the Uruks (sometimes referred to as Urooks) are essentially the Orcs of Trollworld. They are ugly, tough and live in small tribes, usually hidden away in mountain ranges.

It's true that the Uruks have probably had the biggest impact on Trollworld, even more so that the elf wizard Khazan. They were created by an elven wizard known as Loopo the Mad Mage, who bred his new race from magically mutated elves. This was during the world-spanning Wizard Wars, which saw hundreds of powerful 'God Wizards' battle it out for supremacy. Loopo took his army of Uruks and marched against the other wizards and spread the creatures throughout Trollworld.

Not much is known about Loopo. It is said that his birth name was Loo-polierol-Loo, which is a name that uses typical elven naming conventions. He was eventually banished from Trollworld by the mighty elven wizard Nin-durjiel-Nin at the battle of T'Shanshinarr. The Uruk forces were decimated and from then became little more than wandering tribes with no power to unite them like Loopo once did.

While Loopo was still around, Zweetz, the alien-bird serpent wizard, kidnapped thousands of Uruks and took them to a desert island where he shaped them for a millennia into a new race: the Cyurks.

Many thousands of years after the Uruks became nomads, there was a sudden explosion in their population and tribes, led by powerful Uruk shamans, began to raid the human lands. This became a time of great fear for humans as attacks from tribes were frequent and devastating. One of the worst atrocities came from the razing of the city of Herome by Uruk and Ogre allies. Nine-tenths of the population was murdered and the rest were saved by the dwarves, who took them into their citadel - Thrindol.

After many more attacks, including one on a newly rebuild Herome, the 'good kindred' of dwarves, elves and humans decide to form an alliance to take down the Uruk threat once and for all. Led by the wizard prodigy Khazan, the Uruk Wars begin, lasting 62 years.

The Uruks and their monster allies are eventually defeated by Khazan's forces and driven underground, where most of them currently live.

Warriors generally carry a small shield and a crude weapon such as a scimitar or a spear. At low level armour will be negligible, but more powerful Uruk wear scale or ring-jointed plate. Shamans will generally be unarmoured at all levels, but are able to use spells at their level or below. Because of the brutal nature of the race, shamans are more likely to use combat spells such as Blasting Power and Freeze Please.

Uruks typically name their tribes after vicious animals, such as the Black Wolf and Frost-Bear. Due to their history with the good kindred, the Uruk do not take kindly to mainly humans, dwarves and elves, but some have integrated into society and can be particularly found in more 'liberal' cities like Khazan, whose current ruler is the part Elf, part Uruk Death Goddess.

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Welcome to Trollish Delver, a blog mostly about roleplaying games. Trollish Delver Games is a publisher of fine tabletop products, including Romance of the Perilous Land, Tequendria, Quill, USR and In Darkest Warrens.